March 25

Carl and I have often joked that I could hide presents for him on top of the eggs in the fridge because in the past that area was somehow invisible to him. Now I have nothing to say for myself because last Sunday, after I sent out my update, Carl put flowers for me in the kitchen. Somehow I walked right past them, even looking at something next to them on the counter, and didn’t see them! He also wrote a birthday card that was so in line with what I had written in my update that I thought he must have read my update before writing the card, but he hadn’t. I know I had had misgivings about how the double birthday would go. It was actually a wonderful sunny day and we had a great time meeting some friends at a museum.

Wednesday brought us a snow day! We made snow angels, snow people, and snow cats. The girls had a great time playing in the snow throughout the day, culminating in Carl suggesting sledding. Somehow I had still been thinking of the girls as less capable than they are so I hadn’t wanted to take them sledding on my own. If we have snow days next winter I will definitely take them on my own. We also realized we need two more sleds. I can’t remember the last time I went sledding myself rather than just watching. It was so much fun!

Amy had three hard times throughout the snow day, one of which was when her friends were at our house. She got very upset that her art wouldn’t come out as she envisioned. This coincided with needing food, but it took me some time to make the food. Sarah’s interventions escalated Amy’s upset. The friends watched, seemingly stunned. I thought, “what do these other parents do to have such calm kids?!” Possibly they have melt-downs too, and I just don’t see them. My attempts to help Amy feel better or to explain the answer to her “why?” questions never helped. She is as strong a “yes, but”-er as I have ever been. I look back on my early days and I don’t know how my mom did it. All I could do was wait Amy out, ordering her to eat and drink. It is a good reminder to make sure she is really solidly fed every couple of hours. At least when it is up to me. Sometimes at school she doesn’t eat her lunch (she eats her treat and her fruit but runs out of time for the sandwich) and I don’t discover that until much later. 

When we are in the locker room before or after swim lessons sometimes the girls like to hide in the lockers. Sarah was climbing into one while Amy was counting. Then Amy asked “are you hiding?” and from inside Sarah’s locker you could hear, “Yes, I am!” 

Sarah’s way of saying “yes, I am” is so adorable. She pronounces “am” strongly and clearly as if saying “yam” without the y. She often says it when she is either truly sad, or pretending to be sad, and I ask if she is down in the dumps. 

I’ve been thinking about how I coach massage students to apply their body weight to their clients rather than working hard with their muscles. I encourage them to think of the client as a piece of furniture, which is an idea I got from one of my Alexander teachers forever ago. We don’t protect furniture from our weight but neither do we usually press into it muscularly. With massage, I think of enjoying the movements I make so that I feel better after the session rather than feeling all worn out. I feel like I’m on the edge of an epiphany about life. What if we didn’t try to protect people from our true full selves? Nor did we try to push or force ourselves onto people? What if we really enjoyed being ourselves and moving through our days in such a way that we felt really good at the end of our day because we enjoyed our movements and  with what/whom we were in contact? I know this sometimes happens easily and sometimes not at all. As I said, this is a fledgling epiphany. Or maybe it is nothing. But it is something about which I have been thinking.

Am I glad to be on this life journey? Yes I am! 

Am I glad to have you readers? Yes I am!

March 18

Last weekend Carl took the girls to the History Center and they pretended to have a dairy-free ice cream stand. I love how Amy adapts her pretend food to be Sarah-friendly.

For their recent swim lesson the girls practiced saving each other by throwing a floating thingie into the water while holding the other end of a tether. They also wore their clothes in the water, and Amy even wore her shoes!

Yesterday Amy had her birthday party at an art studio. I was so glad we were paying other people to run the whole thing. The noise and organized chaos was almost too much for me, and I had to step out of the room often just so I wouldn’t scream at everyone. I made cupcakes for the party and each one was decorated to look like a cat’s face. Let me tell you, that is some serious muscle work!

7 years ago today Amy made her debut into this world, arriving on my birthday. She has been the best present ever. Birthdays can have a way of being simultaneously wonderful and stressful, at least in my experience thus far. It is easy to fall into wanting other people to make the day special and that that is somehow a way of gauging love. I know that isn’t true and some of my best birthdays have been the ones where I really just figured out what I wanted to do and I did it, without needing anything from anyone else. This year is feeling more challenging. I don’t even know if it is needing or wanting something from others. Maybe it is just that I haven’t figured out how to make it feel special for myself. Maybe it is feeling like I should make it special. I have scheduled the things I usually do to help it feel special and I’m excited about those things. Yet I still have a bit of melancholy hanging around lately. I don’t know if it is feeling eclipsed by Amy’s birthday celebration, even though she is the best present ever in the entire world, because kid’s birthdays just are more exciting than those of grown ups. I don’t know if it is turning 41 and thus feeling like I’m rounding a bend in life. I don’t know if it is because of how I’ve been struggling lately with self-judgement and body image so maybe my feelings have nothing to do with birthdays. I don’t know if it is that it is still winter!! I don’t know. I do know I’m going to attempt to just have a day and not need to make it anything extra. As soon as I say that then the things that are planned do begin to feel a bit more special. And really what is a birthday beyond changing a number and a way for people to show love to each other? One of the sweetest moments this morning was waking up next to Amy and giving each other snuggles and kisses as we wished one another happy birthday. Really, one cannot improve upon that. So today will be a day. I will carry the sweet moments in my heart. I will not need it to be the bestest day ever. I will continue to work towards more gentleness with how I see myself, my eating, my exercising, my either doing ALL of the Things that need to be done, or my doing NONE of the things that need to be done because I don’t want to put down my novel, my sometimes getting tense and mad at the girls. I will remember that I am also playful and kind and that I do at least a mediocre job of mothering. Whenever my mom tries to help me feel good about my parenting she runs into my strong “yes, but…” muscles so she has learned that the thing I will accept is to be deemed mediocre. That at least gets me to stop feeling that I am terrible and we have a good laugh together.

On a different note, I have been absolutely loving teaching. I’m teaching a neuromuscular therapy course for the first time and while I can be worried that I’m not doing a good enough job, I do think my students are learning and I truly love being with them each week.  I am certainly learning things and improving. This week I also taught my first ever continuing education class on the Alexander Technique. It went really well and all of my students enjoyed it and found it helpful.

May you all have a day.

March 11

Last Sunday we went to the Children’s Museum to see the Mo Willems exhibit. Sarah and I helped Naked Mole Rat get dressed for his fashion show. The girls wore small cardboard buses. Perhaps the best part was the Mo Willems’ recordings of how to draw his characters. We all participated and I was amazed at Sarah’s work. Now her SR volunteers are also helping her draw things by doing easy step by step directions that she can copy. Meanwhile, Amy’s characters were better than mine!

At home Sarah did more specific work with large dot markers on coloring pages than I have ever seen her do.

Last weekend the girls snuck extra phone and iPad time. When I came upstairs my bedroom door was closed and a note was written on a tissue in front of the door saying “do not enter this room” in Amy’s handwriting.

I went away for this weekend to visit my parents. Amy was sad, and I explained that when she was older she might do a trip on her own to see me. Amy was worried about who would watch her kids. I said the other parent of her kids would be with them. She anxiously said, “but Sarah and I are planning on marrying each other!” I don’t have the heart to explain how marriage usually works and that sisters don’t marry each other. The love and sweetness are just too wonderful.

During her swim lesson Sarah did her floating with “monkey, airplane, soldier” arms all by herself!

For gymnastics yesterday the girls were in a new class. Their class for the past few years has been for fun and experience but without really focusing on skill improvement. Now they are in the beginner class that does focus on skills. Carl said that both girls did well and that clearly Sarah fit in with being there. The only difference compared to other kids was that he was there to help her stay focused sometimes.

It took me a while to accept that Sarah could read. I kept proving it to myself over and over. I think it is the same now about sharing every bit of Sarah’s progress. Part of writing is to share the journey, part is so I will remember, and part is perhaps to prove to myself (a million times over) that she is progressing. She is, she is, she is. And, the biggest thing to remember is that that isn’t where her lovableness comes from. She is lovable just as she is whether or not she changes or progresses one iota more. That goes for the rest of us too. And isn’t it also wonderful to celebrate every little step towards a goal?

Speaking of which, Carl just said that he and the girls played Dragon Dash easily together. As if it was no big thing. But it is a big thing!! It is such a big thing that it is no longer a big thing! Carl wrote, “At one point Sarah got a tile with a dead end on it and she thought a bit and then put it in the right place, to block off an unneeded path and keep the main path alive. With no hints. Amy was clearly happy with Sarah. It was really great.” Wow!!!

March 4

This week I bought Sarah her first bras. She was excited. I was teary. We had pizza for dinner to celebrate. We also watched a movie, but Sarah didn’t really watch much of it. At one point she was playing in a different room, and then she ran in with a book and said she wanted to read to us. She proceeded to read almost completely unintelligibly, pausing on every page to press one foot and then the other foot against her chin. I figure that this was a pretty enormous deal for her to run in and want to share like this. She was all excited and perhaps overwhelmed, which is why she lost her enunciation and needed to press against her chin to help calm herself. She kept going through the whole book. 

Amy can now open fruit pouches by herself and she has learned to snap. With each new thing she tries to learn she always feels that it is the hardest thing she has ever tried to learn in her entire life. Then she figures it out and moves on to the new hardest thing ever.

For many weeks now Amy has been speaking cat language. Now again, this time in cat…Meor myeny myeeks myow Myamy myas myen myeaking myat myanguage.

Amy recently declared, “I know who I’m going to marry when I grow up: Sarah! We can open a bakery together and sell dairy-free cupcakes."

February 25

For a long time now I’ve had an image in my head of those heartwarming races where one runner is injured and another runner comes along and helps them finish the race. I feel like Amy is a runner that came from behind and is helping Sarah run the race. There are also many of us coaches and cheerleaders and fans who do our part too, but Amy has a special role in Sarah’s life that can be filled by no one but her. She fills this role by being herself. Part of this is playing and asking Sarah to play. She does this not to help Sarah but because she wants to play with Sarah. Meanwhile, Sarah can play with Amy in ways that are currently too challenging with other peers, but I see that finish line and I believe she will make it.

In general we seem to be in one of those times when I feel as if the air is crackling silently with a quickening of Sarah’s development. I also feel like I have truly changed my thinking and responses about some things. 

Last Sunday the girls played sleep over. I could hear them pretending to be a doctor and patient. Then they did wrestling, which Amy didn’t want so then she left in a huff, reminding me of my own childhood when my friends and I would often say “I’m going home!” only to return a few minutes later. I suggested Tower Crash and they scampered off excitedly to play together. Carl and I were marveling at the long,mostly continuous play. On Friday it happened again. While I was cooking dinner the girls ran off to play sleep over. 

Yesterday Sarah and I were snuggling in my bed. Amy came in and Sarah said, “hey Amy” in greeting. I don’t think I’ve ever heard her do that before.

When Sarah came home on Wednesday I asked what her favorite thing was at school. She said playing with K at recess. In her backpack I found a medal that said “good teamwork.”  It took a few times of asking what that was for but then she said it was for going over a tire and through an obstacle course. Another day I had a note from Sarah’s speech therapist at school. She described the session during which Sarah played a game with other kids. I asked her if she played a game with Ms H. She said yes. I asked what it was and she named what her SLP had written to me. I love getting more information from her about her school days! Part of this is on me to find new things to ask her instead of “how was school?” She certainly seems more ready to supply answers than she used to.

A few weeks ago I forgot to write about when Sarah was putting her name on valentines and wrote “Sah” on one of them. Carl playfully called her out on not writing her full name. Somehow it became a joke with the girls laughing and playing for a long time with shortened versions of their names. What I love about this is that for a misspelled word to be funny you have to have a certain command of language and spelling. Certainly she has known her name for a long time, but still. This feels like something.

Sarah seems to have more flexibility lately about what music we listen to in the car. In the past she would ask for her music all the time and even protest my music. Recently we have driven many times without her requesting anything, listening to the radio with no protest.

Weekday mornings our routine involves me turning on hall lights and then Sarah the Light Bandit gets out of bed to turn them off. Sometimes she says “I’m am the Light Bandit! Run, run, run!” and is happy. Many times she says, “No! No! No! I’m too tired! I want to sleep more!” I have stopped trying to reason with her when she is grumpy. Instead I’ve started turning on the lights way more. Especially when it is really time to get going. I just go from room to room turning on lights and she runs around yelling and turning off the lights. Eventually her upset passes and she is quite awake and then usually gets ready pretty easily.

There have been a couple of times when Sarah has been crying and pauses to say “I’m down in the dumps. I feel blah” (a Frog and Toad reference). What is hilarious is that she even cracks up and laughs a bit when she says this, even though she is legitimately upset and crying. As Carl said, her love of sadness extends even to herself.

A huge change for me has been how I think about Sarah’s never-ending request for her original snail pants. The requests are whiney and sometimes come with upset. She is persistent, despite all of our attempts to make replacements, because the replacements don’t really have the right fabric or print. In the past I would just get so annoyed and mad, wanting her to be done with it. As if flicking a light switch, I realized that her requests and upset are her way of moving through her grief that she can’t have her original beloved snail pants. I can be sympathetic and kind towards grief. I can let her process it as long as she needs. I understand how it can pop up suddenly in the midst of other activities. I don’t feel mad anymore. If anything, I am happy to help her get her sad out. I also wonder if it was this shift in me, giving her more space, that has indirectly led to her increased flexibility about music in the car.

Friday’s swim lesson felt very Son-Risey. Sarah’s teacher has always been wonderful but it just felt extra wonderful this time. The belief in Sarah, the asking over and over and over for her to jump in by herself, the patient waiting with encouragement, the huge cheering when she jumped while holding onto a ring that he also held, the creativity. Of course people have these traits on their own without SR training, but it is the SR training that helps me appreciate their value more, knowing that that is the way I want Sarah to be helped and taught. That is effective. That is the love I’ve aimed to surround Sarah with through all of her volunteers. An extra wonderful moment was during one pre-jump when Sarah was poised on the edge. B was inviting and encouraging her, arms outstretched. Sarah’s arms were outstretched. I was standing with baited breath. And the man swimming laps stopped, watching in anticipation, delight, and belief in Sarah too! 

A little about Amy...Amy wore herself out with amazing swimming during her lesson. It was actually a joint lesson again with just the two of them, but because Amy doesn’t need much hands-on help, B just gave her things to do while he worked with Sarah. Amy was a powerful fish until she got out of the water and then she became a very tired, sad cat. She didn’t even want her lollipop on the way home! I was worried she was getting sick. When we got home our sitter E met us and by the time I left a few minutes later Amy had perked up, snuggling next to E to eat her bedtime snack. 

Amy’s reading ability astounds me. She read a book to me and didn’t need any help. She barely sounds out words ever. She just reads. A lot. The book she read was a mass-market Olivia book, but not the kind by Ian Falconer (which are wonderful, amazing, funny works of art). It had a lot of words! 

February 18

When we got to piano lessons on Monday the teacher asked who wanted to go first and both girls yelled “me! me!” while heading for the bench. The teacher did a joint lesson for most of the time. I love that the girls love it so much!

Swim lessons were amazing. Amy now wears goggles, is learning the butterfly, and is practicing diving down to the bottom to pick up rings. Meanwhile, because there are currently no other minnows with Sarah, she gets a private lesson, essentially doubling her amount of time with the instructor. A couple of times she pushed away from the wall and started floating all by herself! I don’t think I will ever stop being amazed.

Last night I awoke to odd thumping sounds coming from the girls’ room. I went to check, adrenaline slightly elevated. Sarah was in the closet. She said it was a tight squeeze. I asked where she was trying to go. She said, “to get a drink of water.” Oh poor thing! I’m glad I went to check. She often gets up to get water or come ask us to tuck her in. My guess is that our day just wore her out so she wasn’t as clear about things when she got up. I know there is some story about my parents finding me scratching at the front door one night, also looking for water.

A couple of nights ago we had a Goldilocks in our bed, which is not uncommon. When Carl picked up Sarah to take her to her bed she asked if he was taking the baby to the pack-n-play. I love that she can have that playful pretending even when she is mostly asleep. 

Ice skating! Carl and I hadn’t been ice skating for at least 12 years because I’m pretty sure it was completely pre-Sarah. The last time we had been to this particular rink was about 18 years ago! Thus, you may infer that the girls had never been ice skating, aside from pretending on slippery sidewalks. At first Amy was frustrated and upset about how she would never learn and it was the hardest thing she had ever tried to do in her whole life. By then end, after many many falls, she was skating with joy and ease, and then falling more. Still. I am amazed at her determination. Sarah held onto us or the trainer wedge longer but was delighted when she started attempting to move by herself and fell on her butt. We were outside. It was snowing. It was magical and beautiful and wonderful. I’m sure my muscles will be speaking to me later! Meanwhile, the girls slept in longer than usual. They got much more of a workout than I did. Much of my time was spent standing still next to them or helping them stand up and hoping I didn’t wipe out in the process.

On a different note, I hate that I am somewhat scared sending my kids off to school. I hate that I am scared about where the next school shooting will occur. Not if. When. Until there are significant changes in this country. I hate feeling frustrated and helpless and jaded and as if I want to puke when I see a picture of the president. I hate feeling like I must acknowledge what is going on in the country in this blog. But it is too important to gloss over as if it isn’t happening. Pecans and walnuts could kill Sarah. We don’t allow those nuts to cross our threshold. Semi-automatic assault weapons could kill my children. They should not be allowed to cross the threshold of being in civilian hands ever. They are for the military. While I wish there were no wars and that military operations could be different, let’s at least take this baby step to protect my kids and your kids and all of the kids. As Glennon Doyle says, “There is no such thing as other people’s children.” So, what now? There are some national days of protest. March 14 at 10am students and teachers can leave their buildings for 17 minutes to protest gun violence and to honor those killed in Florida. April 20 is the National Day of Action Against Gun Violence. Please share this information. If you are a teacher, do a walk-out. If you aren’t a teacher, tell the schools that your children attend. If April 20 ends up meaning keeping kids home from school (I don’t know if it will mean this), plan ahead and clear your calendar so you can be home with your kids. Please make your calls, send your emails, sign your petitions. Thank you.

February 11

While talking to Sarah on the phone, Mom-Mom asked her where she was. Sarah didn’t answer. Mom-Mom suggested several possibilities including downstairs or in the sink or on a bus. Sarah kept saying no to all of the options presented but didn’t offer up the information that she was in the Sarah-Rise room. Mom-Mom said again, “ So where are you?” and Sarah brightly chirped, “Here!”

Our kitchen ceiling is beautiful. There is just a little work remaining to be done but I am able to clean the dust from the cabinets and wash everything. It is good to have a forced reorganization which will hopefully result in less clutter. I also feel incredibly grateful to have found such a good team to do the work. Not only do they do quality work but I just like having them around because they are enjoyable people.

I’ve been appreciating how easily Carl and I agree on things when it comes to making decisions about the house and our furnishings and life. That is not to be sneezed at. I’ve also been appreciating how much Amy and I adore each other. Most of the time it is a clear and easy love and the times that are fraught are few. With Sarah I can appreciate how our love keeps us coming back to each other despite our times of yelling and strife. 

Swim lessons again (as usual) went amazingly well. Amy learned to tread water and Sarah jumped in once all by herself. Sarah spent the whole lesson jumping in and the teacher kept encouraging her to use less of him as her support. He had her jump to his arm and then the next time used a pool noodle in place of his arm so she still had something to hold onto but it was a little less stable and a little more removed from him. 

The girls had gymnastics yesterday and the teacher that I snagged a couple of months ago to be a babysitter led the opening warm up. It was so wonderfully fun and creative that I was just smiling and laughing while watching. If I hadn’t already realized how awesome she was and asked about babysitting, I would have done so after yesterday’s class. From swimming to gymnastics to our large team of sitters to our small SR team to therapists to school teachers and piano teachers, I continue to marvel at how many amazing individuals are in our lives. Seriously. So many amazing people!

Sarah continues to ask “why?” when we tell her various things. When she does then she also seems to be in a good mode for listening to the answer.

I’m reaching for giving Sarah more of my full attention when she is upset. When Amy is upset I have an easier time seeing it as something that will pass and that she needs snuggles. I judge her upset less than I judge Sarah’s. I’m not sure why. Possibly because Sarah is louder and screamier. Possibly because some of Sarah’s topics-of-upset don’t change. I think sometimes I misapply the idea that we choose our emotions and responses, and then I judge Sarah as misbehaving or bad when she is screaming. Then I judge me for not having solved this situation in some Son-Risey way. When I can remember to be gentler with both of us and just give her the time for her feelings (when we have the time) then it is so much better and we have a true, easy, snuggly time at the end. As with other areas of my life, it is best when I remember to be me and not try to be someone else. I am not the Son-Rise founders and I shouldn’t try to be them. I should be me. When I teach, it is best to be myself rather than trying to emulate other teachers, no matter how much I may admire them.

We have been working towards helping Sarah be nicer to Amy when Amy is upset and it seems to be working a tiny bit. Sarah doesn’t get in Amy’s face quite as much and every once in a while will say “Amy are you ok?” without doing any laughing first. 

We have to remind Sarah not to spit in the house or on people. She has developed a new way of spitting where she is sort of launching a puff of air upwards and it has a tiny bit of spit attached. This is ok outside and I understand it probably feels interesting, but…NO SALIVA ON MOM has been a rule for years. We don’t have very many rules that we can recite but that is one of them. No saliva on people in general. I have been needing to remind Amy of this rule too because she likes pretending to be a cat licking me. 

Carl now rows eeeeearly in the morning 4 days a week. In solidarity and so we have a similar bedtime, I now also get up eeeeearly. 4:30am to be exact. Some nights we go to bed as soon as the girls do. Since I teach until 10:30pm on Tuesday nights I do let myself sleep in till 5:55am on Wednesday mornings, but it can’t be any later than that because of Sarah’s bus schedule.